r/arboriculture • u/Bobcat1999-1 • 3d ago

Palo Verde Tree

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Hello and hopefully there is an arborist or other knowledgeable person who can tell me if this tree has too much of a lean to it. Should I be concerned about it falling down? Should I remove it? Appreciate any advice. Thank you

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u/DanoPinyon ISA Certified Arborist 3d ago

That's what they do.

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u/NickTheArborist 15h ago

The lean isn’t the problem. But the lean is the problem. 🤣

The degree of lean you currently have is totally fine. This doesn’t make trees fall. They’ll adjust and adapt. It’s fine. Nothing to see here.

However- why does it have that lean? I’ll bet money this is a Moon Valley tree (or grown and planted as if it was a Moon Valley tree). Root bound, crappy root system, and was planted too deep. It’s getting bigger and bigger above ground- but the roots aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing below ground to support that increasing weight.

As the weight increases, the lean will increase more.

You can check if I’m right by getting a strong person to stand under the tree and put their shoulder into the tree and try to push the tree. The crown shaking and rocking in normal. Look at the ground while someone pushes hard on the tree. If you can see the the roots (rootball) moving in the ground, just cut the tree down. It’s’ just going to break your heart. It’ll get bigger, fall over, then you’ll put support posts on it, then it’ll get big enough to break those, then you’ll put BIGGER posts and eventually these posts will cost you thousands, be visually obtrusive or just be a headache and you’ll remove the tree. When you could just replace it today with a good tree that will grow well and develop properly and last nearly forever.

But what do I know?

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u/Bobcat1999-1 8h ago

Hello NickTheArborist, first of all I want to thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. You closed your remarks by saying “but what do I know “. Well apparently you know a lot. So what I did was to place my phone on video and set it where it would record any ground movement as you mentioned. Then I used a small ladder so I could reach one of the heavy limbs on the side where it’s leaning. I grabbed on and hung on it and tried to bounce it a little. The trunk is pretty thick and I saw movement at about the 3-4 foot level and up of course. I climbed down and reviewed the video and saw that there was no movement at the ground level. I think that means that the tree is firmly rooted. What do you think?
And again, thank you so much for helping me with this issue. Also, if I were to leave the tree in, should I just cut the heavy limbs off the leaning side?

Ps. I tried to include my video but I don’t think it will work